Lottie Woad does not get much time to sit with the putt that got away.
That may be the best thing about the week ahead. The Englishwoman left the Meijer LPGA Classic with the cruelest kind of near-miss, after the LPGA and Associated Press reported that her three-foot par putt at the 72nd hole lipped out before Miyu Yamashita went on to win in a playoff at Blythefield Country Club.
For Woad, the result was painful. For her season, it may still prove useful. The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship begins at Hazeltine this week, and there are few sharper ways to arrive at a major than with proof that your game is close enough to win and a fresh reminder that closing is its own discipline.
A Miss That Carries Forward
ReadGolf has already covered the result itself, with Yamashita turning Woad’s miss into a Meijer lesson. This next step is about what Woad does with it.
The official LPGA site framed Woad’s immediate focus around the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, and that is exactly where her response now has to go. She was not a player miles away from the pace in Michigan. She was a player who put herself in position to win, stood over a short putt to finish the job, and learned again how thin the margin can be on the LPGA Tour.
That is a hard lesson, but not an empty one. Woad’s rise has already been built on a rare ability to look comfortable in bigger arenas than most players her age. She arrived in this Meijer week as more than a prospect, and her run through the leaderboard underlined why her Sunday chance felt bigger than one tournament.
Why Hazeltine Changes The Mood
Hazeltine is not a soft landing. Major weeks test more than form. They test emotional recovery, patience, and the ability to accept that good golf does not always get rewarded immediately.
That makes Woad’s turnaround fascinating from a UK perspective. English golf has been waiting for another player who can make regular noise in the biggest women’s events, and Woad now reaches a major with two truths sitting side by side: she is good enough to contend right now, and she has just taken a Sunday blow that will stay in the mind if she lets it.
The wider field will not care about the storybook version. Hazeltine already had extra edge because the Meijer LPGA Classic functioned as the final competitive checkpoint before the major, a theme ReadGolf highlighted when the Hazeltine field gave Meijer weekend more weight. Woad has now turned that connection from preview material into something more personal.
The Useful Kind Of Hurt
There is a danger in overdramatising one short miss. Golfers lose tournaments in all sorts of ways, and Woad did plenty right before that final green. But there is also no point pretending this was just another top finish.
A near-win like this leaves a mark because it was so close, so visible and so immediately connected to the next major. The best players tend to turn those moments into sharper routines, clearer decisions and a better understanding of what Sunday pressure feels like when everything has narrowed to one stroke.
Woad will not need anyone to tell her what happened at Blythefield. The more important question is whether, by the time she reaches Hazeltine, she has turned the memory into something useful.
If she does, the Meijer miss may not be the moment that stalled her summer. It may be the one that made the next major feel more within reach.
